The effect of cooperative learning on students' critical and reflective thinking skills and attitudes towards high school 3rd grade English lesson

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of cooperative learning on students' critical and reflective thinking skills and attitudes towards high school 3rd grade English lesson. In this study, mixed method, which combines quantitative and qualitative research designs, was used. In the quantitative dimension of the study, quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was used. In the qualitative dimension, phenomenology design was used. The study group of the research consists of 50 students, 25 of which are experimental and 25 of them are in the control group, selected by random sampling based on probability from the 3th grade of X High School in Yeşilyurt district of Malatya province in the 2018-2019 academic year. In qualitative dimension; 16 students from the experimental group were determined on a voluntary basis. The data obtained from the scales applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test were analyzed with a statistical package program. Independent Samples t-test to compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the groups; Paired Samples t-test was used for comparison within the experimental and control groups. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis method. A significant difference was found between the post-test critical thinking scores of the experimental and control group students. Although the post-test reflective thinking and attitude scores of the experimental group students were higher than the scores of the students in the control group, it was observed that this difference was not statistically significant. In general, it was concluded that cooperative learning made the lesson more enjoyable and students felt more comfortable in the lesson.